Ellesmere Road 1952-2009

Ellesmere Road 1952-2009, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I was honestly slack-jawed when I saw the upper photo on the Toronto Public Library's website. If you're not familiar with Toronto, you probably won't think much of it... just a photo of a rural scene that's now urban Scarberia. But the thing is, Ellesemere Road is relatively mid-section in Toronto, and the view you see up top is the sort of thing I would have expected to see of the area from the 1920s or 1930s, not in the post-WWII boom. Not the way I imagined this part of town in the days of Leave It to Beaver.

The lower view is one I took this morning, from the same location, give or take a few yards. What was a farm fifty-some years ago is office space today, just off-screen to the left. Frankly, I'm not sure which view I prefer. They both have something to recommend them.

This one's for you, Jim. :)

Old Finch Avenue Bailey Bridge

Last Friday was Good Friday. It was a holiday. I was kind of at loose ends so I decided to go on GoogleMaps and browse around and set myself an interesting photographic assignment for the day.

I settled on a place I hadn’t been before (at least, I don’t remember having been before): the Bailey bridge that carries Old Finch Avenue across the Rouge River. I actually had to cross it before I could shoot it. It’s a single-lane span and there was a light just before it that controlled access to it. I had to wait for a bit before I could cross.

There’s a lot for parking in just the other side of the river. I parked there; the lot was wet and muddy. It’s been a very snowy winter here and it still shows. I followed a short path down to the river to shoot the bridge from below. I was surprised just how busy the bridge is. I’d say cars went across it about once a minute on average.









When I’d been looking around on GoogleMaps, I’d also noticed another span further downstream. I wanted to see if I could get a look at it. Doing so involved easing down some rather treacherous stone stairs and following a snowy, shoe-filling trail as far down the river as I could get, which was, as it turned out, as far as I needed to go to glimpse the bridge. I was between the water and the cliffside; I couldn’t go any further. In warmer weather, it would have been no obstacle. I would have forded the river and made my way to the bridge. Not in weather like this, of course. But I really do intend to go back this spring or summer and do just that. Stay tuned. :)





Heading home, I had to cross the bridge again going the other way. I happened to glimpse a raccoon using the bridge to cross. He wandered to the side and tucked himself under the bridge as I approached. I really wish I'd been manning a camera... such a wonderful opportunity squandered.

A few footprints on Passmore Avenue

I was at loose ends this weekend, and at one point decided just to drive out to Rouge Park at the far upper east end of Scarborough to see what I could see. I hadn't done anything with my infrared camera for several weeks, so I decided to bring it with me, along with my standard S80.

At one point, I passed a little stump of a street I remembered from the map. It was called Passmore Avenue. I decided to drive down it and see it if emptied onto one of the little streams. The ironic thing was, I didn't realize I was actually fulfilling an old goal of mine from pouring over my old maps, which show, at very stages of completion, Passmore Avenue's course. At one time, it ran almost completely across the entirety of Scarborough, about a half a kilometre south of Steeles Avenue, parallel to it. In fact, a map book produced by Metro Toronto in about 1970 shows Passmore as complete across the city, except for one gap where it does not cross the concession cut by the Little Rouge River. Otherwise, it spanned Scarborough... at least according to that map. It's my intention to check that with the aerial photos at the City Archives... stay tuned, if you care.

Today, Passmore Avenue is largely erased, from the maps, from the land. It still exists as a few discontinuous segments, and as part of other streets that have assumed parts of its course. Large stretches where it once was, at least on the map, are now empty. As I took these photos, I hadn't made the mental connection yet. It wasn't till I was on my way home, coming down Pharmacy Avenue and passing Gordon Baker Road and Glendinning Avenue, and a noticed a store with the name "Passmore Variety" (or some such) on the Glendinning side. That's when it struck me... Gordon Baker and Glendinning were once part of Passmore Avenue... the same street you'll see below, but at the other extreme of Scarborough.

But as I began my trip, still ignorant of what I was actually exploring, I parked just past a few rural homes, and stepped out onto a part of the road that is no longer really amenable to traffic...